


Such Shaping Fantasies (a local habitation and a name)

by ciaan



Series: Such Shaping Fantasies (dream-Kon) [1]
Category: DCU, Smallville
Genre: Dreams, Family, Fluff & Angst, Gen, Kon Is Pure Id-Fic, Lex's Willpower Is Just That Strong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaan/pseuds/ciaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex still has dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Shaping Fantasies (a local habitation and a name)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jlvsclrk for audiencing.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,  
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend  
More than cool reason ever comprehends.  
...  
And as imagination bodies forth  
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen  
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing  
A local habitation and a name.

-Shakespeare, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_

  


Lex still has dreams.

Every time Clark barges in and ruins one of his experiments and delivers another scathing excoriation, Lex dreams. In these dreams Clark is never his current self. He's the way he was, and they are the way they never were.

In dreams Clark shows all his secrets, takes Lex flying, declares his love, strips himself naked. They save the world together. They explore the universe. They grow old together. They stay young and happy forever. Lex will wake from a scene in the barn loft, Clark in his arms, beautiful green eyes gazing up at him in blissful adoration, wake and feel the pain stab into his heart all over again.

In the past few months the dreams have intensified, grown more solid and detailed, and sometimes Lex walks through waking life and can barely distinguish it from dreams.

He jogs through the park in the early morning, accompanied by his bodyguard, and it was just yesterday that he walked through here with Clark. It was brilliantly sunny and warmer than now, summer instead of winter, and they stopped at a little cart and bought ice cream, Lex holding the cone in his left hand and Clark's fingers in his right as they wandered lazily through the lushly blooming rose garden.

Lex tells Clark the story of Narcissus, how he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool and wasted away to death when he wouldn't stop staring at it. Clark's tongue darts around the corners of his chocolate cone and he raises an eyebrow at Lex. "Are you trying to imply something?"

"What? No."

Clark sighs ruefully and leans his head on Lex's shoulder. "Dude, maybe you should be. The irony is killing me here." At the time Lex doesn't understand the statement, and after he rolls over in his cold bed and shuts off the alarm he stops questioning it, because that way lies madness.

Every night these past few weeks Lex has fallen into soft domestic bliss, a young Clark in tight jeans and t-shirts, with ruffled curling hair and brilliant eyes and the widest grin, who wants to explore every inch of Lex's memories, who troops along at Lex's side on tours of the Metropolis penthouse, the Smallville castle and farm, his old school dorm. Clark pesters him with questions, about mythology and chemistry, about Luthor family history, about Superman. Lex winces sometimes but explains everything he can. He is rewarded with guileless smiles and hugs, but Clark dances away into the sky when Lex tries to kiss him, with a teasing smirk.

Then one night they're on top of the penthouse and Clark is in his Superman costume. Beams of lasers split the sunset sky around them from an alien craft hovering overhead.

"Hell yeah!" Clark exclaims. "Time to save the world." He looks at Lex and frowns, narrowing his bright blue eyes. "First we gotta take a fashion readjustment break, though. I am not into this cape and the underwear on the outside is just embarrassing." The cape and briefs disappear and Clark is left in the spandex one-piece, black and red and blue with the S-shield blazing in the center. He hovers closer and places his hands on Lex's chest. "And you are not going to keep wearing a suit and tie."

A laser slices past them and explodes the globe on top of the Daily Planet building. Lex's tie begins to unknot itself around his neck and his jacket slides away off his shoulders as his shirt untucks from his pants. Clark laughs and slips the pin-striped suit jacket on over his spandex, wrapping the tie around his wrist and letting it fasten itself in a new messy knot.

"Prepare for an ass-kicking, evil aliens!" he yells, and grabs Lex and they rise into the sky. Clark punches a flying scaly green creature and Lex takes away its laser gun, and then the two of them are back-to-back in the air over Metropolis, Lex firing away and Clark hitting anything that gets close.

"Why don't you use your heat vision, Clark?" Lex asks after a while.

"That's not working," Clark says. "Freezy breath didn't make it, either." Lex nods, not sure why he would dream Clark's powers away. This isn't the time to pursue it, though, as a group of scaly things darts toward them. A few exhilarating moments later all the aliens have been defeated and their ship blasts away into space.

Lex turns and wraps his arms around Clark.

Clark looks at him with regret. He takes Lex's face in his hands and softly kisses the top of Lex's head. "I can't keep this up anymore, Lex," he says. He lets go and pulls away and Lex falls out of the sky. Lex falls and he wakes up just before he hits the ground, sits up in bed and knows exactly why he would dream of Clark doing that.

The next night he's back in the park. Clark slouches on a bench, arms spread out and booted feet crossed as he soaks in the sunshine. He's still wearing Lex's suit jacket with his black t-shirt and blue jeans, Lex's purple tie in a messy knot around his left wrist. He smiles when he sees Lex and Lex approaches happily, all wariness gone.

"I want out," Clark says. "You gotta let me go, Dad." Lex freezes in front of him. He takes a good hard look and remembers all the anomalies and knows for certain that it isn't Clark he's talking to. It hasn't been Clark for a while. The boy in front of him is maybe fifteen or sixteen. Lex's jacket is too big on him and the sleeves are rolled up above his elbows. His eyes are shaped like Clark's, but colored as blue as the sky, and while his cheekbones and nose are also Clark's his jaw and mouth are Lex's.

"Who are you?" Lex asks. "What are you?"

The boy shrugs. "Well, when one guy loves another guy very much, and thinks about him all the time, or at least the idealized image of him, and has the most powerful mind on the planet, then sometimes they make a baby." He waves a hand vaguely at himself. "Or a handsome teenage boy, same thing."

"This is a dream," Lex says.

"Duh, yeah. We're in your dream, we both knew that already. That's why I said I want out."

Even in a dream Lex can feel the sunshine beating on his scalp, smell the newly-cut grass around them. He remembers every detail of the times he has dreamed being with Clark, flushes slightly at the memories while looking at the boy in front of him. "You're not real." It can't be possible.

"I'm real," the boy says. "I'm the guy with two daddies, Lex Luthor and Clark Kent. I'm Superman Junior. But like Pinocchio, I also want to be flesh and blood."

"Will you spring from my head like Athena from Zeus?" Lex is torn between bemusement at his brain's twists and worry that he's gone around the bend completely.

The boy runs a hand through his dark curls and smirks. "Who knows? But you need to let me go. Let me out."

"I let you go," Lex states. Nothing happens. He knew nothing would.

"You have to believe it. You have to mean it."

How can Lex believe something so ludicrous? How could there be a real person who was created in his dreams? The world doesn't work like that, no matter how many other strange things are in it.

"Lex, Dad," the boy says softly, "it doesn't mean I'll be gone. It means I'll be there." He stretches out a hand and takes Lex's fingers in his. Lex looks down at the solid grip and feels soft skin against his own.

"I let you go..." he whispers. Everyone always goes. But maybe if someone would stay...

The boy grins at him and that's the last thing left in the slow fade to white.

Lex wakes feeling rested and relaxed, even though he's not sure what his mind is doing to himself. He closes his eyes again and sighs. Then the blanket slides off him and the other side of the bed dips under a weight. Lex rolls over and blinks in the early morning light. "Cla-" It's not Clark. It's the boy from his dream.

The boy leans against the headboard as the blanket wraps itself around his body. "Hey, Dad," he says brightly, smiling. Lex sits up in shock.

He reaches out and touches the boy's bare shoulder, then runs a hand through his hair, tucking a curl behind his ear. "You're real. How?"

"I don't know," the boy replies, accompanied with a graceful shrug. "I'm not the metaphysical genius." He winks one blue eye slyly. "I'm just a hungry boy who wants breakfast with my father. And maybe a name of my own?"

Lex's hand shakes slightly as he strokes the soft dark hair. "My mother once said... said that she had wanted to name me Conner."

Strong arms fling around him and Lex hugs back. "Awesome!" Conner laughs in his ear. "And for breakfast can we have pancakes and bacon and hot chocolate? I know what they are but I've never really eaten any of them."

"Whatever you want," Lex answers. Conner floats away a little and hovers in the air by the bed, grinning wide enough to break his face. Lex has no idea how this can be real.

He smiles back. Because it is anyway.


End file.
